That’s a question we've been hearing a lot these days. The voices in our hometown have grown louder as the press has taken note of the impending release and – as some local consumers have recently learned – the beer has begun to appear in a few markets outside of KC. We hope this post will answer some of the questions and provide a bit of insight into the process of releasing a limited or seasonal beer.

The beer business is, by law, a “three-tier” system. Breweries make beer, which is sold to independent distributors, who in turn sell to retail outlets such as bars and restaurants (on-premise) or liquor and grocery stores (off-premise). While the majority of Boulevard beer is consumed within Greater Kansas City and the Midwest region, our products are sold to more than 100 distributors in 21 states throughout the country.

Each of these distributors was allocated a specific quantity of Chocolate Ale, in the same manner in which they receive allocations of all of our seasonal and limited release Smokestack Series beers. We recommended that they begin selling the beer to retailers in their respective markets on or about February 1.

Chocolate Ale was approved for release by our QA department and tasting panel just after the first of the year. Because some distributors pick up only once a month, the beer began to be placed on the trucks of certain distributors beginning on January 4th. While we can suggest to distributors when to release a given beer, our distributors are – again, by law – independent, unrelated businesses, and we cannot control when they choose to begin selling a particular beer, any more than we can control the price at which they choose to sell it.

Our Kansas City distributor will pick up its allocation at the end of the month, and plans to begin delivering the beer to bars, restaurants, liquor and grocery stores throughout the city on January 31st. All of the beer should be out of their warehouse and delivered by February 7th. If you’re going to be looking for Chocolate Ale, Sarah Gish of INK Magazine wrote a nice piece that could provide you some pointers. You can read it here.

Even a year later, we're trying to get our arms around the excitement generated by Chocolate Ale. While this particular brew has captured the imagination of many, if you ask us, all our beers are delightful and worthy of attention. You shouldn’t love one child more than another, right?

Cheers.